


A Friend in Need

by ba_lailah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Found Family, Gen, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Loyalty, Major Character Injury, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Trust Issues, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25399189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/pseuds/ba_lailah
Summary: "My name is Nile, like the river. You helped my friend," the woman says. "A woman with dark hair and a stab wound in her shoulder." She does not sound unfamiliar with phrases such asstab wound."I did," Celeste says cautiously. Is this retaliation of some kind? No, she'd saidfriend."She's gotten hurt again," Nile says. "We could use your help."
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Celeste
Comments: 61
Kudos: 314
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	A Friend in Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/gifts).



Celeste is getting ready to close the shop for the night when a woman comes in and walks straight up to the counter. "I need to talk to you," the woman says in American English. Celeste looks up and sees dark skin, long braids, a red windbreaker, a very serious face.

"Go ahead and talk to me, then," Celeste says.

"My name is Nile, like the river. You helped my friend," the woman says. "A woman with dark hair and a stab wound in her shoulder." She does not sound unfamiliar with phrases such as _stab wound_.

"I did," Celeste says cautiously. Is this retaliation of some kind? No, she'd said _friend_.

"She's gotten hurt again," Nile says. "We could use your help."

Celeste frowns. "Why me? I am not a doctor."

"Because you don't ask questions," Nile says. "Doctors do."

Celeste considers her, considers the situation. "Is this something I can say no to?" she asks finally.

Nile shrugs. "You can say whatever you want," she says. "I'm not gonna force you. But... none of us know what we're doing. We could really use someone who does. And Andy asked for you."

 _Andy._ Why do so many American women have boys' names? But the name suits the muscled arm, the soldier's eyes, the drawn face that she's seen more than once in her mind's eye while falling asleep at night.

Celeste nods. "All right. How badly is she hurt? What do I need to bring?"

"Bullet graze. On her side, here." Nile points a bit below her ribs. "How bad... I don't know. It bled a lot. But she says she's fine." The set of Nile's face makes it clear that she doesn't trust this assessment.

"But she's awake," Celeste says as she starts gathering supplies in a shopping bag. Topical and oral antibiotics. Bandages, the largest she has. "That's good."

"Yeah." Nile looks out the window. "Can we get a move on?"

"What is your saying? 'Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.' " Nitrile gloves. Alcohol swabs. No way to get her hands on a needle and suture, so she throws in some steri-strips instead.

Nile gives her a sharp look. "I learned that from my shooting instructor," she says.

"So did I," Celeste says. She slings her purse over her shoulder and makes sure she has her keys. She can count the till tomorrow. "Let's go."

The flat is in a little post-war building, up two flights of stairs. Someone inside is shouting. Nile knocks twice, then twice more. "It's Nile," she calls. "Open up."

The door is opened a crack, then wider as the person inside decides they're safe to let in. "Come in," he says. He's a very tall man with a large nose, and his English is faintly accented but she can't place the accent. There's a smear of blood on his cheek and he's replacing a handgun in the holster under his arm. "Did you find her?"

"Yeah. Celeste, come on in. This is Nicky." The tall man nods as he shuts the door behind them. "And Joe," Nile says, pointing to an Arab man who's sitting on a folding chair next to the cheap red sofa. Andy is lying on the sofa wearing only a black sports bra and underpants, eyes closed and face grimacing in pain, and Celeste sees the wound immediately, a raw gash along Andy's right side, open to the air like they really don't know any better. The Arab—named Joe, really?—is yelling at her in incongruous Italian. It takes a moment for Celeste to mentally switch languages, and her Italian isn't very good, but she doesn't need the details anyway. Joe is scolding Andy like a worried mother, and that tone is universal.

"Yelling will not help her," Celeste says in English, hoping Joe speaks it. He does, and sullenly shuts his mouth. She can't help noticing it's a very pretty mouth.

"Come on, Joe," Nicky says, pulling Joe to his feet. They have the body language of lovers. She mentally bids adieu to thoughts of Joe's pretty mouth and goes into the kitchen to wash her hands. 

The flat is recently renovated, modern and airy and extremely clean, and it doesn't seem at all large enough for four people, even if the sofa pulls out. The kitchen is nearly empty, and the bin holds only Chinese takeout containers. _They don't live here,_ she thinks, _and they probably don't plan to stay long._ She scrubs up thoroughly with dish soap and rinses until the lemon scent is as gone as it's going to be.

"You came," Andy says as Celeste sits down in the chair. 

"I did." The wound is no longer bleeding, but it hasn't really started scabbing over. It's relatively fresh and not too deep, and it probably hurts all out of proportion to the actual damage done. The edges are burned from the heat of the bullet. What are these people involved in? Well, she's involved in it now too, there's no helping that.

"I don't even know your name," Andy says. "I feel like I should."

"Celeste," Celeste says, setting her bag down on the floor and starting to rummage through it. Nicky quietly brings her a small table where she can lay out her things, and she realizes that he and Joe and Nile are all standing around her, watching. It's a little unnerving. 

"Andromache," Andy says. "But everyone calls me Andy."

Celeste pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves and swabs the wound down with alcohol wipes. Andy hisses. "I am sorry, this will hurt," Celeste says gently. "At a clinic they could give you a, what is it, an injection to stop the pain. And stronger antibiotics."

"No clinics," Andy says shortly.

"Are you undocumented? They will still help you." Joe nudges forward a wastebasket just as she looks around for somewhere to drop the bloody wipes. She tries to ignore her discomfort, but it's eerie how they all seem to be able to anticipate her needs—even though what she's doing is, she supposes, fairly predictable.

Andy laughs a little. "I have plenty of documents."

Celeste raises an eyebrow but doesn't ask the obvious question.

Joe frowns as she gets out the magnifying glass and tweezers. "What are those for?"

"Unless she was naked when she was shot," Celeste says, shoving aside the pleasant mental image of a naked Andy, "there are probably threads of her shirt in the wound. If I leave them in there, they will harbor infection." She frowns back at him. "For people who do things where you get shot at and don't want to see doctors who ask questions, you don't know very much about taking care of injuries. You should at least take a first aid class."

They look at one another uncomfortably. No one says anything.

She shrugs and leans forward to examine the wound. Of course Nile has already pulled out a small, bright flashlight from somewhere and aimed it right where she needs it.

The injury is surprisingly clean; she only finds one scrap of fabric, and there are no fragments of metal or glass. Celeste sits back, satisfied, and opens a box of Tegaderm pads. A generous amount of antibiotic ointment goes on a pad, the pad goes on the wound, and then she's done. She pulls off the gloves and goes to wash her hands with dish soap again.

"No... stitches?" Andy says. The word sounds as unfamiliar to her mouth as _stab wound_ was familiar to Nile's.

"No, it's not very deep," Celeste says, coming back into the living room. "Leave the pad on until it falls off, then apply another with more of the ointment—oh! I should have asked. Are you allergic to any antibiotics?"

Andy looks the way the others did when Celeste mentioned first aid classes. "I don't know," she says after a long moment.

"Well, have you ever had a bad reaction to taking them? Other than the usual..." Celeste motions to her abdomen. "Side effects."

"I've never taken any," Andy says. "Never needed them."

"But you are a soldier," Celeste says, surprised. Soldiers get hurt. Every soldier she knows has an assortment of scars and stories to go with them. Yet Andy's skin is unmarked except for the graze on her side, a puckered bullet wound to the left of her navel—a gut wound, professionally stitched, surely she would have gotten antibiotics for that!—and the line on her shoulder where Celeste taped her up not so long ago.

Andy tilts her head. "Not exactly."

Celeste looks at her, then looks up at Joe and Nicky and Nile. They're poised, alert—even Nile, who looks barely old enough for university, has a lethal air. She sees the blood on Nicky's face again and wonders whose it is. She thinks that if she says the wrong thing right now, one of them will probably kill her without thinking about it.

"I said I would not ask questions," she says carefully. "You are hurt, and I am here to help. That is all."

Nicky says something in a language Celeste doesn't know, maybe Arabic. Andy glances at Celeste, then replies in kind. Joe breaks in, disagreeing, and some discussion ensues. Nile listens closely, but doesn't speak; she has the look of someone picking up a word here or there, but not fluent. Celeste watches them for a moment, then wonders why she cares. She's not likely to see any of them again after this. She's still not sure they'll let her leave here alive. Maybe that's what they're discussing.

Without anything else to do, she sits down at the little glass dining table and looks around. There's not much to look at. A black tactical vest lies discarded in one corner. A pile of bloody clothes is next to the sofa—Andy's, presumably. There's a door that leads to a bedroom and another that's probably the bathroom. They could clear out of here in under five minutes and it would be perfectly ready for the next AirBnB guest.

She pulls out her phone, intending to play 2048, but then Nile is there and the phone is gone from her hand. "I have to take that," Nile says. "Sorry."

Celeste sighs. "Then you will not need to kill me," she says, "for I will be bored to death."

That startles a laugh out of Nile. "You're pretty chill for someone who thinks we're going to kill her."

"I don't want to die," Celeste says. "But I think that decision was out of my hands as soon as I told you I would come with you." She gestures at her clothes, her make-up. "I don't look like this to be cool. I see dying people every day for my work. Death and I are... familiar. I don't want it, but it doesn't scare me."

Nile nods slowly. "If it helps any," she says, "none of us want to kill you."

The tension that's been keeping Celeste upright ebbs a bit, and she sits back in her chair. "That's good to know," she says. "Thank you."

"Nile," Andy says. "Yes or no?"

Nile keeps her eyes on Celeste. "Yes," she says.

"Nicky?"

"Yes."

"Joe?"

Silence.

"We need her," Andy says. She sounds strained from more than pain. "I need her."

He sighs. "All right, yes."

The grief in Andy's voice is so strong that it draws Celeste back to her side. "What is it?" she says, kneeling by the sofa and taking Andy's hand. 

"I'm dying," Andy says, her voice creaking with weariness.

"You're not _dying_ ," Joe says. "You're just not..."

He trails off. Celeste stares at him, confounded. Not what?

"Oh, come on," Nile says, and then Nicky has a knife in his hand (where did he get that?) and he's drawing its blade across his palm. Blood wells up and drips onto the polished wood floor.

"Qu'est-ce que vous—" Celeste gasps. Then she claps her free hand over her mouth as the wound knits itself closed before her eyes. 

She squeezes Andy's hand tightly, both seeking comfort and thinking to offer it in the face of this astonishing display. But Andy's face is unsurprised, calm and sad. "That's what my body used to do," she says. "And now it doesn't."

"It's not possible," Celeste says faintly. A great, desperate hunger wells up in her. How did he do that, could other people be somehow taught to do that—so many lives could be saved—

"Don't ask for another demonstration," Nicky says, wiping first the knife and then his bloody hand on his shirt. There isn't even a hint of a scar. "The last time, Nile shot herself in the foot."

"Y'all are never gonna let me live that down," Nile mutters.

"A waste of a good shoe," Joe says, but his heart isn't in the banter. He's watching Celeste closely. 

"So you can't get hurt." Celeste hesitates. "You can't... die?" Nicky nods. She feels dizzy. 

"Now you know why we never took first aid classes," Nicky says.

"Can you... share it? Teach it? Do you infect each other with it?" She thinks wildly of vampires. That's impossible, but all of this is impossible.

"No," Nile says. "It's something that's happened to us, and we don't know why. We don't know why it stopped with Andy either."

"We need you," Andy repeats. "As you guessed, we're warriors. We've tried being other things, but some cause always calls to us. We fight for what we believe is right: saving the innocent, taking out the selfish and destructive. Too bad the selfish and destructive tend to be well guarded." She glances at the others. "They try to protect me, but it's hard. We're not used to it. I don't know how to fight defensively. I'm going to get hurt, and I'm going to need to get patched up."

Celeste squeezes her hand again. "I will do what I can," she promises. "But you really should have a doctor you can go to. If that bullet had been a few centimeters to the side, you'd need surgery, not my little alcohol swabs."

"If that happens, we'll deal with it then," Andy says. She smiles wanly. "Ever wanted to go to medical school?"

Celeste draws back, startled. "Yes, but... how did you know that?"

"You're a healer, the way we're warriors," Andy says, groaning as she sits up. Celeste helps her, uncomfortably aware of how pleasant it is to put a hand behind Andy's knee and an arm around her shoulders. "If you didn't have a calling, you wouldn't have invited some strange woman with a bleeding shoulder into your storeroom."

"I might have," Celeste says, because Andy's hand is lingering on her back, and because it's true.

Nicky says something rude in Italian. Joe punches him in the shoulder and Andy responds with a phrase that clearly means _fuck off_. Nile rolls her eyes. "Children, behave," she says, and even Celeste laughs. She's in a room full of immortal warriors and one no-longer-immortal warrior who's almost certainly flirting with her, and nothing makes any sense whatsoever, but she no longer thinks someone's going to break her neck or shoot her in the head, and the relief of that is so immense that it makes her giddy.

Nile looks at her thoughtfully. "And you're a warrior too, aren't you."

Celeste tilts her hand back and forth. "I was in the army for a time," she says. "A short time. I wanted to do battlefield medicine. But I... did not fit in." The others nod, understanding. "I left before I could complete my degree. Since then I've been trying to decide whether to pursue medicine or pharmacy." She does not say that treating Andy's bullet graze feels more right than anything has in years. _A calling._ The phrase makes her think of her aunt who baffled the family by becoming a nun. It's not a term she's ever applied to herself. But it's true, fixing broken people is what Celeste has always done.

"We can pay your way through med school," Andy says.

Celeste laughs. "There is no cost to it in France. I just have to make up my mind to do it."

"Then we can pay you to make up your mind."

"There is no need." Celeste leans forward. "You help people, you said."

"Yeah," Andy says. She's still shifting around, trying to get comfortable. It's clear that she's not used to being in pain, and the fact of hurting grieves her far more deeply than the pain itself does. And of course they won't have any pain medicine on hand—Celeste should have brought some. "When we can."

"Then take me where I can help people," Celeste says earnestly. "People like you who can't go to doctors who ask questions. People in trouble."

Andy considers that. "We can do that, when it won't compromise the mission," she says at last. "But you have to keep our secret."

Celeste thinks of all the people who might want to get their hands on the secret of everlasting life. "Do you have enemies who will come after me to get to you?"

"No," Nicky says, "we don't leave them alive to do that."

She nods, absorbing that, wondering how many people they've killed. "All right," she says. "I'll do it." She looks directly at Joe. "And I will never tell your secret. On my life."

He still scowls like he's not sure he trusts her, but he doesn't say anything. _Someone has betrayed him,_ Celeste thinks. _I will have to prove myself loyal._

"Thank you," Andy says. She closes her eyes and slides back down, resting her head on the arm of the couch. "Is there anything else you need to do for this?" She waves a hand at her side.

"No." Celeste stands, looking down at Andy. The older woman (how much older? If they can't die, how long have they been alive?) is pale and still, like a marble statue, but Celeste is struck by an intense desire to kiss her and feel those perfectly carved lips go warm and soft beneath hers. Not now, but once she's healed... maybe. "Drink water. Take ibuprofen—I can bring you some. Rest, and rest more. Let your body heal. You will not like it, but a few days of rest now will save you weeks of pain later."

"I don't care about pain," Andy grouses.

"Boss, I'll hold you down if I have to," Joe says.

"And make Nicky jealous?"

"Who's jealous?" Nicky says. "I'll take the second shift." He flexes his hands.

"Doctor says rest, you rest," Nile says. "That's how it goes." She looks so young, but she has an air of authority. Celeste thinks even Andy might listen to her. Andy flings a hand over her eyes, muttering something about mutiny, but Celeste is fairly sure she'll let them talk her into sleeping, maybe even in a proper bed.

She gathers her things. Before she can ask, Nile puts her phone in her hand. "How do you _do_ that?" she says, somehow irritated by it.

"Do what?" Nile says.

"Know what I'm about to do before I do it."

They all glance at one another. "Usually that's just us," Joe says.

"Everything happens for a reason," Nicky says slowly.

"It means you're part of the team," Andy says. "Like it or not."

"I don't know yet," Celeste says. "But I think... I think I will like it very much."


End file.
